Performance camshafts for 2 litre engine

[75coupe]

Dear All,

I have recently aquired a set of performance cams that came my way at the right price, and I am in the process of fitting/testing so thought I would share my experiences with everyone.

The spec of the cams are: 42/82/82/42 timing with 10.6mm lift, 304 degree duration, supposedly a fairly peaky profile for road use. These cams have been cobalt welded to enlarge the profile and then reground, not my idea of an ideal cam after researching, but worth a go given the cost and the small amount of use the car has (1500km last year!!).

I decided to do the swap with the head still on the car, which is possible, but care has to be taken to ensure the engine is not turned over once the timing belt has been removed! The cam swap is easy enough, but the first problem you have with any performance cam is the reduced base circle of the cam, which means you now have a massive valve clearance which is not possible to adjust using the standard range of shims. There are different ways around this problem, such as using no gasket and using instant gasket to seal the cam carrier to the head. I tried this and it worked for a while, but developed an oil leak, so I decided to have the base of the cam box skimmed by 0.8mm. This worked fine. Other methods include using top hat shims on top of the valves themselves, and this is probably the best method.


Once the cams were fitted and a new belt fitted, cam & ignition timing was checked, cam boxes re filled with oil and cams run in at 2000 rpm for 20 mins. I was lucky that the engine ran well enough to do this - I was worried that the carb jetting would now be totally wrong, but so far it is good.

Initial testing has revealed stronger mid range torque (3500+ rpm), but a slight loss of torque below this. The main improvement is that the engine will now pull to 7000rpm happily (my self imposed rev limit) and pulls very strongly from 4500 upwards. With standard cams the engine ran out of puff at about 6000rpm, even with twin 45's, 10.5:1 CR and 4-2-1 exhaust.

The tickover is now a little lumpy, but not bad, and to my surprise, the car is still very driveable, happily pootling along at 2000rpm in fifth! Some very basic (and probably very in accurate) performance timing with a stopwatch has 0-62mph(100km/h) in 7,2 secs and 100mph (160km/h) in 18 secs. using the sticky Toyo R888's (very little wheelspin) Standard road tyres get no where near this figure - First gear it justs sits there scrabbling!

My next move is to obtain some adjustable cam gears, to get the cam timing spot on, and put the car on the rollers to see what the real BHP outcome is.....

[HFStuart]

Very smart,

Is the head ported at all and whats the origin of the cam ?

Stuart

[lanciamad]

Very interesting... would be good to find the actual bhp out, recently had mine done, but have found out something interesting and something I should have checked first which may have affected the results a bit. (I'll put it on the blog sometime)

Standard road tyres get no where near this figure - First gear it justs sits there scrabbling!

Mine does this in second gear with standard engine and box on gravel or the wet you just have no chance.
I plan to try some 130 strada/ritmo cams in a ported head, big valves and the rest...eventually. Anyone already done this and the results produced?

[75coupe]

Stuart,

The cams originated from a company called Vickauto in the USA, http://www.vickauto.com but they are produced by a company called Delta camshaft also from the USA. The current strength of the Aussie dollar makes it worthwhile buying from the US. I have purchased other parts from vickauto who have always looked after me. There are other firms such as International Auto Parts who stock these cams as well.

The head has been slightly cleaned up, port sizes all standard, 3 angle valve seats, 30 degree back cut on inlets, standard 42mm inlets/36mm exhaust. I will be fitting larger valves next year and probably have the head "properly" gas flowed then.

I now have a copy of Guy Croft's manual, so will be using this as a reference for future work. (shame I did not have it sooner....) If I had a choice, I would probably opt for some of his 3A cams, I have a friend with a Fiat 124 spider with some of these in - great cams but expensive.

Unfortunately I fall in to the skint "wife and 2 kids" to support category, so everything I do is always DIY and "make do".

[HFStuart]

Unfortunately I fall in to the skint "wife and 2 kids" to support category, so everything I do is always DIY and "make do".

Lol - you're not the only one !

That really is a small base circle isn't it ?

I know Vicks and bought a lot of stuff from Bayless a couple of years ago  - sadly the current value of the pound makes pretty much everything expensive at the moment.

Stuart

[75coupe]

I thought I would add a short movie for those interested - this was pre cam swap, but with the other engine mods - twin carbs/4-2-1 manifold, single silencer, high comp pistons

Lancia Beta coupe at Mt Cotton Hillclimb

[lanciamad]

That's how there supposed to be used

[HFStuart]

Top notch stuff !

[75coupe]

Thanks guys, just found another mini clip....If you turn the volume up you get an idea of how loud the webers are with no air box.....

Lancia Beta Hillclimb